


Lost at Sea

by Vattghern



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Jaskier | Dandelion, Character Development, F/M, Gen, Jaskier | Dandelion Loves Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, M/M, Multi, Post-Episode: S01E06 Rare Species, Slow Burn, The Witcher 3 Spoilers, Video Game Mechanics, Witcher Jaskier | Dandelion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:36:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27876194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vattghern/pseuds/Vattghern
Summary: After the disastrous events of the mountain Jaskier boards a ship on a journey that will change his life and destiny forever.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	Lost at Sea

**Author's Note:**

> THE WITCHER AND ALL ASSOCIATED WORKS RELATING TO ANDREJ SAPKOWSKI'S BOOKS, THE NETFLIX TV SHOW OR THE WITHER VIDEO GAME DON'T BELONG TO ME. I am simply creating fan fiction based on the author/ video game developer/ show directors's works and none of this belongs to me.
> 
> This is a very slow burn. It will focus very much on Jaskier and his journey, so don't expect a quick reunion with Geralt. There will be game and book spoilers and Netflix spoilers too, so beware. 
> 
> I'm hoping that thhs will be a series but depends where it takes me. I wish i could expand the tags but I don't want to give the plot away too much, I will add tags as we progress or if there's potential triggers.
> 
> English isn't my first language and i'm a very sporadic writer so please don't judge me too harshly - but I welcome criticism. I also don't have a beta.

Well, in the end he's been thinking of the coast for a good couple of months and here he is at last, boarded on The Precipice, fancy name for a big pirate ship, due to sail in less than four hours.

He's sat in a tiny, rotting cupboard shoved deep down in the belly of the ship. Number sixty two, scratched into the wooden door with a knife. There's no space, the door cannot open fully so he has to squeeze in sideways to climb into the bed, reminds him of this story he heard once, from a traveller seated next to his and Geralt's table, that if your head fits through, your whole body will. He'd giggled at the time and Geralt, mouth full of ale, had rolled his eyes and shook his head. 

He may test that theory one day, but for now he contends himself with staring at a blank page in his songbook, quill poised over the page, yet eyes blank as the page and mind heavy. The straw bed is so hard and worn and pressed with time that his buttocks have gone numb, like riding Roach for too long.

He'd boarded this morning, legs shaking and body swaying this and that way as if he'd already been at sea for a month. And apparently that is how long the journey was going to take this time, the captain said. Jaskier isn't in a rush, he has no goal in mind and only a vague destination and a vicious, punishing drive to sail away, far away, and leave all his misery behind. So what of it takes an eternity to get wherever he's going, gives him time to heal his broken heart and weary body. The trip down the accursed mountain had taken more out of him than the ascent. Crows feet, indeed, he thinks bitterly.

The Precipice is certainly the biggest vessel he's yet seen. He managed to scrounge up a speck of awe and curiosity when he impulsively followed the piss head captain from the tavern he'd found him in, all the way to the giant ship, which to his estimation measures at least half of the Oxenfurt academy grounds.

Even now, sat on his hard straw bed, deep in the bowels of said ship, he can hear an awful murmur of sounds. Shouts, laughter, swearing, doors slamming, sails flapping in the wind, swords clashing, even the baying of sheep and a panicked nicker or two.

Horses on a ship. He thinks of velvety muzzles, snuffling about his pockets.

He can't be far from the animal pen then, the animal noises rise above the murmur. He will soon begin his exploration. Blasted - no verse comes to mind.

Ah, there.

_Will he fall and sink down deep, off the precipice,  
No one fool enough to care, nor to miss._

__

__

_Icy waves will burn through veins, burn through veins..  
Scorch through him till naught remains, naught remains._

He passess the time this way, until a feeling of foreboding and anticipation starts to vibrate alongside the dying notes of the lute in the air. The vessel sways and something changes, they're now at sea.

With a sickly feeling of trepidation Jaskier gets up, squeezes past the door through the long, dark corridor of the ship until he stumbles up the ramp to the surface. If he wasn't feeling this strange, he might've taken a moment to appreciate the way the sun's kissing the ocean, as if returning to a lover's embrace after a long time away. But the poet's heart and eyes haven't been appreciating these things as of late, can't bear to focus on lovely things and golden sunsets that remind him of golden eyes because he fears that if he let his tightly wound control go for even a moment, he'll sink and not resurface for a while.

It's better to try to limit these thoughts as much as possible and keep to facts and clinical recollection of said facts or memories. He's not often very successful but he's nothing if not stubborn. Anyone of his acquaintances from the academy, or Essi, would hardly believe that the bard could be anything but joyful, happy and full of inspiration at all times, even after heartbreak. But Jaskier is only human after all, and being a bard and a poet is his life, but so was Geralt and -

No, best to walk away from these thoughts. 

Never having been on a ship before, Jaskier feels more than a bit lost if he's honest, and moves away from the ramp, slaloms through the myriad of dirty bodies and sailors and finally makes it to a relatively free spot at the railing, where he's greeted by sea foam kissing his face. Oxenfurt falls slowly behind, a slow, gradual distance between him and the distant turrets of the academy and he feels a hole reverbating through his stomach at the sight and thoughts. He feels rdiculous, after all he's traveled the lenght and width of the continent, sure mostly accompanied by Geralt after that fateful meeting in Posada, but the'd also been travelling by himself. Making his way from whatever backwater town they'd found themselves in when the air turned sharp with the threat of winter and Geralt would decide to leave for Khaer Morhen, leaving Jaskier to wake up alone and trudge his way back to Oxenfurt. But Jaskier was only seventeen when he met Geralt, and that was his first adventure, he remembers it took a lot of his courage and a lot of Est Est to finally leave the academy to become a travelling bard. So he's never been on a ship, and whilst his heart is sick and heavy, his curiosity gets the best of him.

So over the next couple of days, he gets acquainted with sights, sounds and sensations that bewilder all his senses.


End file.
